


Curtain Call

by clexastories



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clexastories/pseuds/clexastories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa may or may not hate Clarke Griffin--a new addition to their dance company who is moving up in the ranks too quickly for her liking--but when she helps her overcome a block in her dancing, and in her emotions, Lexa may just have to re-evaluate exactly how she feels about this girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curtain Call

Her feet hurt, but that was nothing new to Lexa. Beauty was pain, and ballet was both, made of blood and sequins and sweat and satin, every graceful leg line and perfect foot arch tempered by the ribcage-visible thinness and cracked, ruined toes.

Dance was in her blood though—her mother had been a ballerina too, though never a principal like Lexa—and so she thought it was only fair that she gave a little bit of it back. She had bled on this stage before, so there was no reason to resist giving it a little more, especially when their company’s upcoming show was riding on her.

So she ignored her throbbing feet and prepped for her combination again, muscles coiled and ready to spring her into action. Counting off and hitting play on the player attached to her armband, she launched into the first steps with confidence and precision, nailing every move. Her form was impeccable, and she knew it, but the farther she moved into the combo, the more she frowned. This part—the climax, when Giselle is pleading for her lover’s life, the lover who betrayed her, caused her death, and still she wants him to live—kept tripping her up. The steps she knew, but somehow the piece still felt dead, heavy, laboring. Lexa could practically hear Indra yelling at her:  _loosen up, let it flow, you’re a ghost, a spirit, you’re not a fucking tree branch so stop acting like it!_

Her frustration welled up so furiously that she fell out of her pirouette, stumbling backwards. The ungraceful thumps of her pointe shoes echoed in the deserted theater as she steadied herself, and Lexa let out a strangled, hoarse, despairing cry.

“If you’re going to scream, might as well make it a real one. Go on, I won’t tell.”

She whipped around to see Clarke standing in the wings, smiling and as unperturbed as she always was.

 _Always waiting in the damn wings_ , Lexa sneered silently. Whether she intended to or not, Clarke Griffin—with her colored leotards and messy buns that skirted the bounds of their dress code—was gunning for Lexa’s position in the company since they day she joined, slamming into the studio just shy of late with a lazy apology. Her impulsiveness and flouting of the rules didn’t matter though. Indra had advanced Clarke more quickly up the company ranks than any girl before her, and somehow Clarke had managed to charm her competitors into not caring. Lexa cared though, because she had given too much of her blood to this company to let anyone take what was hers.

“I arranged this to be a private practice session,” she replied, turning away from Clarke to take up her starting position again. “It’d be nice if you could respect at least some of our policies.”

“You’re too tense going into your turns. And into your leaps. You start out fine but—”

“So you’re the choreographer now?” Lexa snapped.

“I’m trying to help.”

“I don’t need it.”

“You do.”

In disbelief, Lexa turned again, because really she had gone too far—only to stop short when she realized Clarke was only a foot from her.

“You have it in you, and you know what you need to do,” she said, softly, firmly. “Indra berating you clearly isn’t helping, so I saw you practicing and thought I’d try to help. Give a different perspective.”

Lexa set her jaw, ready to refuse, except her feet hurt, and she had never seen a more honest color than the blue of Clarke’s eyes. So, after stubborn minute, she stepped back, giving a reluctant nod.

Clarke smiled, this time a small, shy one, so different from the usual brash grin she toted around the studio and stage. “You can go back to hating me, even if I do help with this. And if I don’t, then you actually have a reason too.”

Shifting uncomfortably, because apparently she wasn’t as collected as she thought, Lexa pursed her lips and shrugged. “I don’t  _hate_  you.”

Clarke’s laugh floated up to the painted, gilded ceiling. “Sure you don’t.”

Before Lexa could protest—half-heartedly, probably, because yeah, she kind of hated this girl, simply for how good of a dancer she was because that was undeniable, as much as she resisted that admission—Clarke swept up to the front of the stage. She considered Lexa carefully, tipping her head to the side, fingers drumming against her hips.

“What would it feel like if you couldn’t dance again?” She said finally.

“Horrible,” Lexa responded. “Like a part of me had died.”

“Then dance like this is your last time ever.” Clarke shooed her to the center of the stage, counting off for her.

Lexa fell out of her pirouette again several minutes later, just as tense as ever. Clarke merely held up a hand in supplication.

“I get more than one try,” she argued.

Lexa glared—her feet hurt even more, damn it—but took up her position again. For almost forty minutes, Clarke kept throwing suggestions at her. No music, different music, dancing like the floor’s on fire, dancing like she’s moving through molasses, dancing like she’s dodging bullets. No matter what they tried, Lexa could still hear Indra’s criticisms echoing, just a few more ghosts haunting her.

She swallowed thickly, not wanting to think about what other ghosts would be haunting her, not here, not in this theater.

“Lexa?” Clarke called out, taking half a step forward.

Shutting her eyes, Lexa tried to block out the concern on her face, the careful way she was looking at her.

“One more try, and then I go back to hating you, reason or not,” Lexa bit out.

“One more try,” Clarke agreed. There was a long pause, and a few considering sounds before she spoke again. “Dance like—dance like one person is watching you.”

“What?”

“One person. If only one person could see you dance again for the rest of your life, perform it like you were doing it for them.”

If Lexa didn’t hate Clarke before, she certainly did now, because all of those memories of Costia—laughing as they stretched in the mornings, frowning as they did what she considered ‘boring’ barre work, playing with ridiculous lipstick shades in the dressing room, giving her a thumbs up from the wings during a performance—flooded back, no longer kept behind her carefully constructed mental damn. Every part of her ached, screamed out for a ghost of a girl, and a life, that she could never get back. Costia was dead, and Lexa was just going through the motions, dancing without putting her heart into it, under control of forces that were not her own, as if under the spell of the Wilis herself.

The haunting notes of the combination’s melody started playing, the suddenness of it startling her into motion. She never opened her eyes, because if she did, she’d lose the image of Costa sitting in the front row of the theater, dressed in those old sweatpants she liked, wearing a t-shirt she sweetly swore up and down wasn’t Lexa’s, watching her dance as Giselle. Watching her dance for the Wilis, for Myrtha, dancing in plea to spare her prince’s life. Watching her become someone else, someone who could forgive, and grieve, and mourn, someone who could  _feel_ —

She landed the turn, sweeping into the next part with ease, her limbs electrified and her heart full, dancing for the girl she had loved.

As the music faded to nothing, Lexa had a hard time stopping. She fell out of her ending pose immediately, shaking out her legs and opening her eyes to find them wet.

“Perfect,” Clarke breathed, and every part of Lexa turned numb.

“Thanks,” she replied stiffly, backing up so she wasn’t under the spotlight anymore. She fisted her hands, resisting the urge to wipe away her tears, not wanting to draw more attention to them.

“Lexa.” 

The sympathy in Clarke’s voice almost broke her. “Don’t,” she warned sharply.

“Like I said, you’re still free to hate me,” Clarke offered, and Lexa steeled herself against the melancholy there now too.

“I don’t hate you,” she repeated like earlier, but her tone was dull, toneless, as drained as she was. She didn’t have enough energy to hate, but she was too weak to give any more concessions than that.

Clarke merely sighed, giving Lexa one more careful, long look before disappearing into the wings again.

“I miss you, Costia,” Lexa whispered into the darkness.

Nobody answered her back, and Lexa spent a long time looking at the empty seats in the front row before she took off her pointe shoes and left for home.

* * *

“What’d the princess do to piss you off now?” Anya muttered as they prepped their shoes before rehearsal the next day.

Lexa glared at her, though not as coldly as she had glared at Clarke upon entering the studio that day. Clarke had been on time, even early, for once. She had even taken a half-step in Lexa’s direction earlier, only to freeze when she breezed right by her without a word.

“Nothing,” Lexa replied.

Anya snorted.

“She doesn’t have to do anything. She’s just—Clarke.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

Anya kept giving her pointed looks all throughout their warm up routines, which Lexa ignored. So, she was being cold, but Clarke herself had given her permission to continue hating her. Why did she expect that things would be any different between them now?

It felt wrong though, because she  _didn’t_ hate her. Still, Lexa grew more and more tense throughout the morning, feeling Clarke’s eyes following her through their floor combinations. Indra frowned when she missed a few steps of the last pattern, distracted as she was, and Lexa seethed. So much for helping her.

She continued to sense Clarke’s presence as she stepped up to perform her troublesome solo, as Indra wasn’t going to cut her any slack. The show was approaching rapidly, so Lexa supposed she deserved the scrutiny. Her nerves rattled as she heard the music start and took her starting pose, anxiety causing her vision to blur, eyes unable to settle an a fixed point. Panicking, she looked around, desperate not to miss her first cue, when suddenly, her gaze snapped to blue eyes, and everything settled.

A whisper of a laugh spun in the air— _Costia_ —and then she moved. She moved, and she moved well, with intention, and grace, and grief, dancing just like she had the other night when a ghost was watching her instead of the girls whom she considered both friends and enemies. She danced, and Indra stayed quiet, in fact the whole room was quiet, just watching her dance, and dance like she used to.

The ending was easy this time, and tearless, and Lexa smiled as the soft pattering of applause drowned out the music. Then a sharp, rowdy whistle pierced the air, followed by a delighted laugh, a golden type of sound. She looked at Clarke, and her daring smile, and then at Anya, who didn’t miss a thing and was looking far too satisfied.

Lexa barely had time to flush before Indra cued up the music again, determined to make sure that whatever change had come over her star dancer was there to stay.

With a confidant look at Clarke, Lexa began again, knowing without a doubt that it was.

* * *

Weeks later, Lexa stood in front of another applauding crowd, this one ten times larger and louder, the thunderous, approving sound washing over her as she took a bow after her combination. On a quick glance to the wings, she saw Clarke standing there, her bun disheveled and her leotard strap twisted, blowing her a two-handed kiss with a proud grin.

Lexa looked back at the front row through the brilliant shine of the lights, seeing every seat filled with a shadowy figure of a stranger, no room left for ghosts.

She smiled, and bowed again.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a tumblr post that I don't know how to link to - but it's linked on the tumblr post, so come find it on my [tumblr](http://clexastories.tumblr.com) if you're interested! 
> 
> Also, I have only basic ballet knowledge, so I apologize if anything is inaccurate!


End file.
